Cat Scratch Fever
by Danyella Skyler Silverfire
Summary: Smoker has a cat. Smoker gets a new cat. Ace shows up for some loving and meets the cat.


**Title:** Cat Scratch Fever  
**Fandom:** One Piece  
**Author:** Danyella Skyler Silverfire  
**Website:** Livejournal, Insanejournal  
**Rating:** PG-13  
**Genre(s):** Humor/Romance  
**Pairing(s):** Smoker/Ace  
**Summary:** Smoker has a cat. Smoker gets a new cat. Ace shows up for some loving and meets the cat.  
**Warnings:** None? I don't know?  
**Disclaimer:** Checks reality meter (It's remarkably Magic Eight Ball shaped). {{shake}}{{shake}} Do I own One Piece? Nope still the right reality. Go eat a tuna sandwich instead. {{stares}} Damn.  
**Author's Note:** I get some _weird_ idea's sometimes. This is... just read I can't explain.  
**Word Count:** 1,062

Cat Scratch Fever  
Part One

Smoke was a pure-breed Persian given to Smoker (and named) by his long-time friend Hina for his thirty-third birthday. The cat was the latest in a long line of gifts taking a jab at his pride and attitude. He had learned long ago to accept the gifts from her with grace, if not amusement. After all, there are worse things to be compared to than a fussy, pure-bred show cat, much worse things.

So Smoker took the ball of fluff with a smile, acknowledged the poke at his pride for what it was, and even kept the joking name.

Ember, by contrast, had been a half-grown harbor cat of indeterminate heritage, that stowed away on Smoker's ship and managed to stay hidden for weeks before making her presence known by crawling into Smoker's bed one night, having gotten in through Smoke's cat door. It was odd to Smoker to wake up not to just Smoke laying pressed against his side in a ball of gray fur, but to find another cat draped across his throat like an orange and white furred scarf.

After feeding, bathing, and having the ship's doctor check her over, in that order, he decided to keep her as a ship cat, if only so Hina would lecture him less on his having turned Smoke into a mouser.

Ember, in spite of her rough beginnings, soon grew to be an affectionate and curious crewmember. Even if her curiosity did keep her underfoot, if not in trouble, she soon came to be adored by the crew. In fact, it was them that named her, though Smoker pretended not to know they had, let alone why they had chosen _that_ name.

Smoke, however, didn't take well to having an intruder in his domain, let alone such a _strange_ feline. This led to the two cats getting into fights almost daily over everything from favored napping spots, to food, to attention, to just feeling like it.

Ace's first encounter with Ember was during one of his sporadic visits where he'd just show up and stay until he left. Smoker was sitting, petting Smoke, while talking with Ace over coffee, when Ember sauntered up and deposited a dead rat at Smoker's feet for inspection. Smoke, enraged by Ember's gall, went streaking after her, being led on a merry chase, before finally catching her.

"What the hell was that?" Ace asked in surprise.

"That would be Ember showing off again." Smoker prodded the dead rat with a booted foot.

"Ember?"

"Stowaway cat."

"And you haven't eaten him yet?"

"I haven't felt like it."

"So what have you been up to?"

* * *

Ace sat chatting with a tableful of Smoker's crew in the ship's mess hall when he suddenly felt a furry figure squirm under his arm. He looked down just in time to see Ember stick her entire face in his untouched bowl of soup.

"Hey! Do you have any idea of the kind of favors I had to trade for that?" Ace scolded.

"Really?" the Marine across from him asked, snickering.

"You know if Smoker wouldn't become insufferable I'd steal your entire ship, crew included. But he would, so I won't."

"Yeah right," someone else scoffed.

"I'm hurt, and does he do that often?"

"Try to drown in soup? Yes, I've had to rescue him from a couple of stewpots. He loves the stuff."

* * *

Ace glared viciously at Smoker across the breakfast table. "I hate you."

Smoker ensured that he had thoroughly thought over the article he was currently reading before asking blandly, "Why?"

"Because you sleep like the dead," Ace ground out.

Smoker lowered the newspaper and carefully folded it before looking at Ace. "What brought this on?"

"The cat wouldn't leave me alone last night. If he wasn't climbing all over me with his sharp-sharp claws, he was climbing over _you_ with his sharp-sharp claws, and you didn't even NOTICE!" Ace snapped.

Smoker looked at Smoke, bemused, "Really?"

"Not your prissy cat. The new one."

"You're mad that Ember is living up to both the expectations of being a cat and of being named after you?" Smoker asked in clarification.

" No... yes... damn it, stop mocking me," Ace huffed.

Smirking, Smoker pointed out, "But you make it so very, very easy."

"I hate you." Ace proceeded to sulk and eat breakfast, pointedly _not_ falling asleep.

* * *

Ace frowned in annoyance as he searched through Smoker's footlocker.

"Anything in particular you're looking for?" Smoker asked as he turned over in bed to eye his lover.

"My hat; did you put it somewhere?"

"Other than a fire you're not controlling? No." Smoker leaned over and grabbed his jacket off the floor. "Where'd you last see it?"

"On your desk, I think. Wait, no, you threw it in the corner." Ace nodded in thanks as Smoker turned up the light.

"You leaving?"

"Yeah. I was just passing through."

"Hn," Smoker grunted as he finally selected his first cigar of the day.

"You know, you _could_ visit me for a change," Ace pointed out. "I mean, its not like we're a secret since you sent out that damn memo." He was referring to the general memo Smoker had sent out the year before, that essentially said that he was having an affair with Fire-Fist Ace and he didn't want to deal with some idiot trying to blackmail him.

That entire mess made Ace realize that Hina might be right: Smoker seemed to be trying to see how far he could push the Marine command before they just executed him. But in this case the command (rumor said Sengoku) felt that Smoker's relationship with Ace was a much needed calming influence on the nearly uncontrollable Marine, so decided to allow the relationship to stand without interference.

"I've met your crew. I'd really rather not spend more time with them than I have to."

"They're not _that_ bad."

"By rights half of them belong in an institution of one sort or another - for instance, your cook, who _is_ clinically insane and was on his way to a prison for the criminally insane when he fell into Whitebeard's hands."

"You're not exactly all that sane yourself." Ace didn't even bother defending his crew. Every word Smoker had said was technically true.

"Yes, but I, unlike your serial killer of a cook, am not a cannibal."


End file.
